


Stringer

by SLWalker



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Journalist!Bail, Major Character Injury, Political Intrigue, jedi!maul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: Thanks to the Ascendancy Contention going differently, Bail Organa became an investigative journalist on Coruscant; his contact, a fallen Jedi as wild in appearance as he is controlled in demeanor, has given him the biggest scoop since the supposed fall of the Sith Empire.





	1. Shady

**Author's Note:**

> From one of the TCW plot generators: _Maul is a Fallen Jedi and Bail Organa is a reporter. Neither of them are ready for the passionate kinship that grows between them when they discover the dark secret of a powerful senator._ Not sure where, if anywhere, it can go, but it's a fun little AU to play with! It takes place sometime right before TPM would have gone down. If you like it, feel free to throw me some prompts on tumblr at sl-walker.tumblr.com or here in the comments! The universe needs more of these two anyway. (Also, these pieces will probably not be in any particular chronological order. And, since it's me writing, there's every chance it'll get shippy.)

His contact was waiting when he got to the rendezvous.

It wasn’t the first time that Bail had met with some shady people in his career; investigative journalism on Coruscant led to some _interesting_ places, to say the least. But one of the fallen Jedi? That went beyond merely _shady_.

Still, he felt this was the best calling available to him; tracking down leads and putting together the news, in the hopes that he could drag into the light some piece of corruption rotting in the Republic’s dark shadows. His PolSci degree could have kept him busy on Alderaan, maybe climbing through the ranks of the ministries – if House Panteer, who was awarded the crown, would even allow him to advance – but while Bail had been raised his entire life to serve, he felt he could do better by both Alderaan and the Republic at large _here_.

He knew it worried his parents, his sisters. But he was making a name for himself as the reporter who broke the stories everyone else was too afraid to. (He even had a few scars and replaced teeth to prove it, too. As well as some astounding good luck to escape with no worse.)

He murmured the passcode and the quiet baritone that answered him came as no surprise; he had heard that voice a few times, setting this meeting up. The inner-core accent, the softness of it.

What did come as a surprise was his contact’s appearance. He lowered his hood over a crown of horns; in the dim light splashed across the buildings from advertisement screens outside of the alley, his two-toned skin made him look like a puzzle. _Zabrak,_ Bail thought. But not like any zabrak Bail had ever seen before.

“Lord Bail,” said zabrak greeted, with a polite bow of the head.

“Just Bail,” Bail answered, after a quick glance around to watch his back. He offered a wan half-smile, taking in the former Jedi. “Nobility doesn’t count for much down here.”

“I suppose that would depend on how one defines what nobility is.” There was a quiet rustle, and then a black gloved hand was offering over a datapad. “I don’t know that I would trust anyone else on this forsaken world with that,” the zabrak said, nodding down to it.

Bail reached out and took it, glancing up to make sure that his companion approved of him turning it on to see what it contained; when he got back another nod, he turned his attention to the screen.

What he saw actually made him gasp.

There wasn’t much left in the galaxy that could get Bail to do that.

“This is– kriff, this is _huge_ ,” he managed to say, after a moment where he had to pick his jaw up off the walk, scanning through the information with the speed of long-practice. “Where did you even–”

“I have my own sources.” The former Jedi blew a soft breath out of his nose. “I suggest you see if your publisher will provide you security.”

“They might, after this.” Bail just kept shaking his head, stunned by the content and the _amount_ of information on the datapad. All noted and sourced, as well as it could be, too. “I mean, I’ve gotten pretty good at watching my back, and I’ve gotten really lucky, so even if they don’t–”

When he glanced up, he thought he caught a look of amusement in those gold eyes looking back at him and cut himself off to ask, “–what?”

“I was a little late to save you the bruises the last time; push for that security because I’d rather not find you dead in some trash receptacle,” the zabrak answered, with a wry little grin.

It took Bail only a second to put together what he was being told. To realize that his luck hadn’t been extraordinary. “You’ve been–”

“For awhile now. I had to know who you were.” For all of his formality in carriage and speaking, something about the way he rolled his shoulders in a shrug made Bail smile despite everything. “If you could be trusted.”

Bail supposed he could have gotten angry about being tailed, but when he thought about the number of vibroblades that didn’t make it between his ribs, when he thought about the number of times a blaster bolt missed him by mere centimeters, he found he didn’t want to. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely. Fallen Jedi or not, his contact had kept him alive for– probably quite a period of time now.

The zabrak just shook his head, and then took a step back into the deeper shadows, the black markings on his face seeming to pull him into them. “Good luck, Bail Organa. I’ll watch over you as well as I can, but I can’t make any guarantees when that goes live.”

On an impulse, Bail reached out and caught him by the wrist, though gently. “Wait. Will you tell me your name? I won’t– I won’t go to the Order with any of this.”

The zabrak turned his wrist, pulling free just as carefully, and appeared to consider it for a moment before saying, “Maul. Just Maul.”

Fierce name, for such a soft-spoken, controlled person. “Will I see you again?” Bail asked, almost hopefully.

“Maybe. Perhaps.” Maul shook his head, then turned with a swoosh of his cloak, almost ethereally graceful as he vanished into the darkness. But his voice trailed back, “Be safe, Bail.”

Bail looked after him long after he was gone, then back down at the datapad; at the evidence against Jedi Master Dooku. At the evidence against Senator Palpatine, of Naboo, linking him to the embargo set in place there by the Trade Federation, which had just started only days before. At the systemic work done to break down Finis Valorum’s name and therefore support in his role of Chancellor, though there was no suggested end goal to that.

Kriff, this was the biggest story of the century.

“Thank you, Maul,” he murmured, whether it would be heard or not. “You stay safe, too.”


	2. Vape It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A play on the debatable 'cursing' in Wild Space, prompted by a question on Tumblr.

Whatever it was, it smelled– sweet. Perhaps a little tangy.

The investigative journalist that Maul had been tailing now for several months (and defending when necessary) had some device he regularly pulled from his pocket to puff on. It didn’t smell like it was spice-related (something Maul encountered often in the lower levels of Coruscant), nor did it have the acrid burn of smoke. Maul wondered if it wasn’t medicinal; Organa tended to pull it out whenever he’d had a near miss, or was finding out information that seemed distressing, though he also puffed on it whenever he was drinking a cup of caf and occasionally for no apparent reason at all.

It wasn’t until he had handed off the information that would implicate not only Naboo’s senator but also his own former Order in everything from genuine corruption to blind arrogance – on that spectrum – and they had something of a working relationship that Maul thought to ask after it.

Bail jumped a little, eyes shadowed with fatigue ( _Probably paranoia,_ Maul thought; the story hadn’t been broken yet, but that was because Bail’s publisher was forcing more investigation and independent sourcing, and sitting on that kind of information was exceptionally stressful) and then looked down at the cylinder in hand. “Oh, uh– it’s a vape pen.”

Maul’s brows wavered; he didn’t recognize the term. When Bail saw his confused look, he offered it over. “We grow tobacco on Alderaan. I mean, not my family, but it’s one of our niche exports and I was young and stupid and took up smoking in University. And I got addicted to it. But after awhile, the smell was putting everyone off and my mother told me to quit. I did quit the nic part, this is just flavor, but the habit calms me down.”

Maul took the device and looked over it; it was fairly intuitive. There was a tank on the top filled with some pale blue liquid, and a button and small read-out on the side. Just to satisfy his curiosity, he pressed the button and tried inhaling on the mouth piece.

He spent the next four minutes coughing, leaning against the wall of the side-street they had met on, flailing one hand in either an attempt to wave off the concern or just to do so, he didn’t know which. When he finally got it under control again, Bail was looking at him in both apology and amusement; the man’s Force signature felt less ragged, less sharp, and the emotions radiating from him were some strange combination of delight and guilt.

“Kriff, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to take the pen back when Maul offered it. “It packs kind of a kick when you’re not used to it.”

Maul cleared his throat, voice a little ragged as he replied, “I’ll say.” The taste was interesting, indeed sweet and tangy, or maybe a touch sour, but it wasn’t worth the coughing.

Bail turned the device off and pocketed it, and some of the shadows seemed to leave his eyes as he teased, “But hey, now I can say I’ve actually made a Jedi flail.”

Maul huffed a breath out of his nose, quietly. “Former Jedi. Fallen Jedi.”

“For the right reasons, though.” Bail’s expression softened some. “Uh– if you like the taste, it’s based on a drink. Non-alcoholic,” he added, hastily. “I could bring you one next time we meet.”

The journalist was often trying to do that sort of thing. To offer things – to buy dinner, or caf, or to in some way _pay back_ both the protection and the information that Maul had given him. Maul required no payment for those things, so he kept refusing, but there was something earnest in the man’s face to go with the warmth of his emotions – like hope, like affection – and that was disarming enough that Maul finally said, “All right.”

Bail broke into a wide grin.


	3. Deadlines, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written off a prompt by my best fiend Shadowmaat. Let's see where this goes. XD

When Bail had applied for his freelance journalism license on Coruscant, he'd given up a _lot_.

Not the least of which was the financial support of House Organa.

Licensing rules in the Republic for freelance journalists -- and regular journalists, too -- were ostensibly there to protect the integrity of the profession. Not only did they have to list any of their biases on their ID cards, they also had to cut themselves off from any political connections they had which could lead to financial gain. Thanks to Alderaan being ruled by her Elder Houses, even if House Organa didn't currently have the crown, the line between private enterprise and public political entity was blurred enough that Bail could no longer receive the support of his House, and therefore had to basically make it or break it on his own.

Even though he was raised to be hard-working and aware of his own good fortune, being born into that family, he found out that it was so much  _harder_ than he had known. He had never been one to look down his nose at anyone, and didn't like people who did, and he had always been respectful to everyone regardless of class or background, at least until they lost it his respect through their actions, but Bail had never understood before how _insecure_ everything felt when your rent was paid month-to-month. When you weren't sure you'd earn enough to feed yourself reliably. When even just getting from point A to point B required wondering whether you should buy a cheap bike or keep shelling out for cab fare. When you had to pick up odd jobs during business hours and then dig out stories at night.

He had spent his whole life to date not only giving to charity, but putting his back and muscle into helping see it through to those who needed it, but until he was living this hard-bitten life, he couldn't have _understood_ it.

He'd gone hungry a dozen nights that first month. Gone sleepless several times. Got intimately acquainted with the overtaxed indigent shelter system. He had thrown himself headlong into writing stories for every rag who would give him the time of day on Coruscant, from the small sector journals to the large news services who were more impressed by his name than by his skills, and he couldn't count the number of kilometers he had walked, the number of people he had talked to, and how many hours he spent putting together enough news to keep himself clothed and housed. He broke story on a small-time organized crime operation in one sector; he helped compile evidence of someone slicing traffic patrol droids to take a cut of their citation fines in another. His biggest story -- the one that finally got him on the radar and making at least a steady pittance -- was when he had managed to score an interview with a Corellian official who refused everyone else in order to ask questions about an investment that had gone wrong. That one, he'd gotten because he had friends from before in that government's ruling class, but at least it got his foot in the door.

This was about a thousand times bigger than that.

When a Neimoidian named Hath Monchar had contacted him about having something that related to Naboo, Bail's heart had hit his throat. By now, the embargo had turned into a full-scale blockade only days before, and now it was more critical than ever to break this story open.

But when he found out how many credits Monchar wanted for that information, his heart had swiftly taken the elevator down to his boots.

House Organa could have possibly paid it, but Monchar wanted an absurd amount of capital. Bail had no desire to break his journalism contract, but he had hedged around, saying Monchar had to show that he had something important, and hoped that he could verify it was actually worth something before maybe appealing to someone who _could_ pay it. Like the big publisher -- the Coruscant Vindicator -- that he was putting this story together for. Monchar had contacted him because he was from a rich family; Bail made use of the perception of him as corruptible due to said born privilege in order to set up a meeting.

Monchar's face was twisted in disgust as he stood around the side of a brothel, the smell of bodily fluids of various origins practically a noxious cloud in the polluted air, but the Crimson Corridor was the only place he was willing to meet with Bail. Bail hated going there, but there wasn't any time to haggle.

He hadn't been able to contact Maul, either.

"Do you have it?" he asked, skin prickling with nervousness over both the venue and the potential break Monchar claimed to have.

The Neimoidian sneered back at him, sliding his hand into his fine-looking robes and pulling out a-- strange looking pyramid, etched with golden runes. It almost seemed to glow with its own light, but that might have been a reflection from the neon of the businesses. "Do you have the credits?"

"Oh, sure, I always walk around the worst neighborhoods with five hundred thousand large in my pockets," Bail answered, straight-faced. "No, I don't, but I'm pretty sure that I agreed you would get it very quickly if what you had was worth that price."

"This is a waste of my time, Organa," Monchar spat back, sliding the pyramid into his robes again. "It's a holocron. A _Sith_ holocron. But you won't touch it before I get my credits."

At the mention of the word 'Sith', Bail had to work pretty hard to get his eyebrow back down to neutral. He knew what holocrons were, rare as they were and as guarded by the Jedi as they were, but he wasn't sure what a holocron from a long-vanquished enemy could hold that had any significance to the current state of galactic--

He didn't hear the blaster fire before he felt the heat.

All thoughts shattered as something seared right through his back and chest, so sudden and swift and white-hot that it paralyzed both his lungs; one moment, breathing and thinking, the next, he was vaguely aware of the thud and more distant shock of impact as his knees hit the filthy ground; everything rang and he turned his head as if through water to see Monchar running -- (Waddling in those silly robes, some very detached part of Bail thought) -- and then the advance of three shadow-blurs from the other side as his gaze panned slowly around, one dressed in Mandalorian armor, two more--

He wavered in place; took a breath that was lopsided, burned and

Something gold flashed out of the darkness and instantly two of the shadowblurs were spinning around, only to land on the ground. Their heads rolled past Bail in some manner unreal, necks still smoking. The third shape took to the skies, and--

Bail waited to join them, the bodies on the ground, until he realized that the blur of red and black and yellow in front of him was a face.

He blinked hard; Maul looked at him, wide-eyed, then in the direction Monchar had gone in, then back at him again. As if making a decision.

Bail tried to say something. Maybe a greeting. Maybe so he could tell Maul to go after Monchar. He couldn't seem to breathe enough, though.

His skin felt hot and cold, but he could feel the pressure of fingertips first across his cheek, then pressed to his forehead, even as the rest of his vision started fading black at the edges. The pain was sharp, but-- there was something else there. Something-- something--

 _Sleep, Bail,_ Maul whispered. _I have you. Sleep._

So, Bail did.

 

 

 

  
It hurt to breathe, but it didn't feel lopsided.

The pain went all the way through; started just under his shoulder blade at his back, towards the outside. Out the front, just the same. A rod of it, like it was stuck right through him, something not quite pressure but like pressure. He took one breath, then another, then there were hands on his face; it was only when he felt how warm those hands were that he felt how cold _he_  was. He tried to open his eyes and ask what happened, but nothing was working right.

 _Journalist malfunction,_ Bail thought, deliriously.

Somewhere in all of it was a different sensation. It felt familiar; like sunlight on bare skin, like clean air, but-- internally. As if these things could be distilled to water and were poured through the hole in him. The pain faded a little bit and his lungs opened up some small amount more, and only then was he able to get his eyes open, though barely.

"You were shot through a lung," Maul said, voice pitched to a murmur. "Healing you is slow going; I was only just learning advanced techniques when I left."

The words all made sense, but they didn't want to stick in Bail's head. He tried to ask where he was, or what was going to happen, but he couldn't seem to make his mouth move enough to do so.

His eyes were closed again before he realized they were.

 

 

 

He dreamed of home; of Alderaan, and the Estate; dreamed of her waters, the network of rivers and lakes and seas that bound every part of her together and of the first clean shock of cold as he jumped into the Palama or the Stonebrook or the Triplehorn, the gasp as he surfaced feeling alive.

 

 

 

It wasn't dark, when he opened his eyes again, though he expected it to be. His chest still hurt, but it didn't feel as bad as it had before; when he was able to swim his way back up to consciousness, his mind was a little more clear. He was on a bed that was makeshift but comfortable, blanketed against the mild chill, and the pattern of light thrown on the walls fascinated him for a moment. It looked like sunlight, but frankly, it had been a very long time since Bail had actually seen Coruscant's sun and he could have been mistaken.

"I'm glad you woke up on your own; I was about to see about waking you myself."

Bail turned his head and then blinked a couple times; Maul was pulling on what looked like a utility suit, and it was the first time Bail had ever seen him in anything but his robes. "Not with ice water, I hope."

"No," Maul shook his head, half-smiling. "I mean, it speaks well of your recovery." A beat. "Also, it saves me the guilt; you seemed peaceful and I was loathe to break into it."

Bail nodded back at that, then carefully went to push himself up; he was in a single duracrete room, and what furniture there was clearly was salvaged and repaired. There were droid parts in neat little piles against one wall, and a very small fridge humming in a corner, and a table with dings and dents in it under a set of lights. A doorway led into darkness, unlit. "Is this your place?"

"It is. We're in an old utility room; it was abandoned a long time ago, but the rent can't be beat." Maul paused and scrubbed over his face, now all suited up; when he dropped his hand, he eyed Bail carefully, seemingly peering as much _into_ him as at him. "You've been asleep over a day; it's been near two since the attack. You'll need water and food, if you're up for it?"

Bail wasn't sure he felt anything like hungry, but he nodded. "If you've got anything, I'll pay you back."

"You don't have to pay me back." Maul shook his head and went to crouch by the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water and something wrapped in foil, bringing it over and sitting on the edge of the bed to hand it off. "It's not much; a half a nerf strip sandwich. I'll pick something else up when I go out."

Bail took the water and cracked it open, but he was more paying attention to the ex-Jedi. Without his robes and the heavy shadowing of the underworld, with some measure of light actually making it into the room, Bail was struck by how _young_ Maul looked. Despite the low voice and the careful demeanor, despite the black breaking up the red like it was meant to obscure, there was a bit of a boyish softness still written in the line of his cheek and jaw; still evident in the lack of a furrow between his brows and the dip there down to the bridge of his nose.

And even though there was no easy indicator like bags under his eyes, he also looked pretty kriffin' tired, too. "Where are you headed?" Bail asked, before taking a very careful sip of water.

The corner of Maul's mouth crept up. "Now that I know you're actually safe somewhere, I was going to work for a handful of hours." He gestured loosely at his outfit. "There's a warehouse not too far from here; they're willing to pick up laborers for stocking duties without demanding a set shift. Or a permanent address. And they pay under the table in uncoded chips."

"An ex-Jedi stock clerk?" Bail asked, his own grin sneaking up on him. "I-- can't say I expected that."

Maul huffed back, still half-smiling. "I don't think that's any stranger than an exiled nobleman stringer."

"Point." Bail looked down at his chest, where a clean wrap of bandages went all the way around him, tight enough to hold what looked like a clean dressing to where he had been shot through without being so tight as to hamper his breathing; he could feel a pad of the same on his back, too. Then he glanced back up again. "Thank you. For saving me yet again."

"That's nothing you need to--" Maul started, then stopped; his eyes flashed narrow as he turned his head, like he was listening for something.

Bail blinked, then looked in the same direction, but he didn't see anything. "--what--?"

"Jedi," Maul answered, shortly though not meanly; his hand snapped out and the lightsaber Bail hadn't noticed sitting there on the table before flew into that hand as he rose to his feet silently. He headed for the front door, where the light was coming through a window, but he didn't ignite his blade.

Bail looked around for some way to  _help_ \-- to arm himself or to find something to throw, not wanting to leave Maul to face something potentially dangerous alone -- but there was nothing in easy reach, so he set aside the water and half a sandwich and made to get up.

The door opened and the man standing in it had his hands up, empty. "I'm not here to fight, I swear. I come in peace."

Maul fell back a step, shoulders stiff, and asked incredulously, _"Quin?"_

The Jedi -- tall, with darker skin than Bail's and a yellow stripe across his nose ( _Kiffar,_  Bail realized), and long locks pulled back into a messy tail behind him, pretty young himself -- offered what seemed almost like a sheepish smile. "Yeah. Hi, honey, I brought presents and news? Please don't stab me."


End file.
